


Somewhere under the rainbow

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Series: Tiny rainbow 'verse [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Coming Out, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Steve McGarrett Deserves Nice Things, pride month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-22 23:32:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19139071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: It’s nothing, really. It’s supremely innocuous and shockingly easy to overlook. It’s just a thin wooden skewer with a small, multicolored rectangle of paper at one end, but it feels much, much bigger than that when he carefully plants it in his pen holder.Or: Steve takes a step. Five-0 has his back.





	Somewhere under the rainbow

**Author's Note:**

> This is a small, fluffy ~~intended as drabble-y~~ thing that I wrote because I wanted to, but also because it’s pride month!!! 🌈🌈🌈 :D
> 
> The title is adapted from _Somewhere over the Rainbow_ , a song by native Hawaiian singer and activist Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. I swapped the proposition for “under” because I like the down to earthness of that contrasted with the song – over the rainbow is where our hopes and dreams are, everything we aspire to, and under it is where Steve is currently, firmly rooted in reality (which doesn’t have to be so bad, either).

It’s nothing, really. It’s supremely innocuous and shockingly easy to overlook. It’s just a thin wooden skewer with a small, multicolored rectangle of paper at one end, but it feels much, much bigger than that when he carefully plants it in his pen holder.

While he’s arranging it to his liking – or okay, fiddling with it, wondering if he shouldn’t slip it back in his pocket and pretend it doesn’t exist – he gets the feeling that he’s being watched. He glances back over his shoulder, sure that it’s just paranoid guilty reflex, until he meets Danny’s eyes through the glass of his office door.

Danny raises both eyebrows at him and somehow manages to gesture with the coffee tray and paper bag of malasadas he’s holding in a way that very eloquently conveys that Steve should come get his share pronto, or there will be nothing left. 

Steve goes. 

He leaves the tiny rainbow flag on his desk, where it belongs.

*

It’s a slow day – no kidnappings, no murders, no nuclear bomb threats. For the island of Hawaii, this is a good thing. For the Governor’s special taskforce, it means paperwork.

Kono comes to him mid-morning with a set of requisition forms on her tablet that she needs his signature on. As soon as she sets foot in his office, he tenses up in anticipation, and then- Nothing. She rounds the desk to stand next to his chair and hands him her tablet and a pen, and he signs. She swipes to the next document and he signs again. Technically they all work for the government, so it goes on like that for a while.

When she’s leaving, tablet tucked under her arm, he already has half an eye back on his own computer screen when he realizes she has paused at the corner of his desk. 

She flicks the tiny flag. Not hard, but enough to make it wobble a little as it tries to fight gravity. “It’s cute, boss. I like it.”

He fumbles for words. “I wasn’t sure,” he admits. He’s too shocked to lie. Things were so boring and normal that he managed to forget it was there in the first place.

“You should keep it.” She gives him one of her patented bouncy smiles and skips out of his office.

*

When Chin sticks his head in, he doesn’t knowingly tiptoe around it until he can go for a sneak attack the way Kono did. His steady gaze goes from the flag to Steve, and he says, just as steady, “Looks good there.”

This time, Steve is marginally more prepared. He leans back in his chair. “Thanks.”

Chin nods, and because he’s Chin, that’s it. “We’re going to Kamekona’s for lunch. You coming?”

Steve is already up and moving, grabbing his phone and his sidearm, just out of principle. “God, yeah.”

*

Leaving the desk for lunch is invigorating, but as a break from a full day of peering at screens it only goes so far. When Lou knocks at his office door, he’s hopeful for another distraction, and Lou provides, indirectly. “Hey man, Chin made use of our day at home to update the tech table’s operating system. He’s requested everyone’s attendance to give us the grand tour of what’s new.”

“Alright.” So okay, it’s not that much better, but at the very least it means he has a good excuse to get up and stand around for a while, instead of having to force himself to sit still for another consecutive hour. He’s too relieved to be picky.

Lou lingers in the door opening. “You doing some redecorating?”

Steve glances at the flag. It’s been the center of his day, but it’s just sitting there, doing nothing. “Yeah.” He shrugs. “I figured a splash of color would really liven up the room.”

Lou’s laughter is genuine and warm, and Steve grins at the sound as he follows him to where the rest of the team is already gathered in the central room.

*

By the time the end of the day draws near, there’s just one person who hasn’t set foot in his office yet. It’s also the one person that Steve is sure would have noticed any tiny change to Steve’s environment, because they pay that kind of attention to each other. It’s just what they do.

When Danny finally shows up, he takes up a position in the door opening. Like Chin, he doesn’t dance around anything – smart, because he’s not a very good dancer. His expression is neutral to teasing when he nods at the rainbow in the pen holder. “Very Hawaiian of you, babe.”

Steve’s been waiting for this. He’s been stalling, watching the rest of the team leave one by one, knowing that Danny would drop in to say goodbye in person. “That’s not really what I was thinking,” he admits.

“No?”

“Nope.”

“Hmm,” Danny says thoughtfully, his eyes on the gay pride flag. When he lifts them to look at Steve instead, it feels deliberate in a way that makes a shiver run down Steve’s spine. “So are you still busy playing solitaire, or are you free for dinner?”

Steve’s heart shivers, too. He can’t ask if this is Danny offering to take him out, because that would run too great a risk of devolving into their routine Steve-always-forgets-his-wallet banter. Usually that’s great, but it would be a distraction right now. “I’ll pay,” he offers, taking a leap towards the one thing that could throw them off kilter.

Danny’s eyebrows fly up and he moves his body to prop the door open with his shoulder, specifically so he has both hands free to signal indignation. “Are you kidding me?” he asks, loudly. “All these years, and all I had to do to get you to pay every once in a while is date you?”

Steve tries not to let on that for a second in the middle there, he was sure he was about to have a heart attack. “Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.” 

Danny’s grin lights up the whole sorry room, Steve included. “I repeat, are you kidding me? Deal of a lifetime. Get off your ass, I’m making you buy me a steak.”

Steve gets off his ass. He doesn’t look back as he steps through the door that Danny holds open for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are, as always, welcome and wonderful. ❤
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as [itwoodbeprefect](https://itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com), or with my exclusively H50 (and mostly McDanno) sideblog as [five-wow](https://five-wow.tumblr.com).


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